Public Housing, Public Works

One thing struck me as I was Googling "public housing" the other day: the clear thread connecting its origins to public works. We forget that the very first public housing was actually built through the Works Progress Administration. It was only in 1937 that a comprehensive housing act was passed by Congress. Prior to that, housing was created in public works fashion: the unemployed were recruited to be the workforce. (Soon after the 1937 Housing Act, states allowed localities to establish authorities for the purpose of receiving federal construction funds. My Authority just celebrated it 70th anniversary: it was founded a year after the 1937 Housing Act's passage. Its first project, Bay Village, was completed in 1941 and still provides decent, safe and sanitary housing for two hundred families. It has no vacancies.)

Amazingly, a front page article in the NY Times this week (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/us/09wpa.html?pagewanted=2&sq=Green%20Hills&st=cse&scp=1) brought the question of public housing/public works into stark focus. First was the picture of Greenhills housing, itself. Very utilitarian and very familiar. Apparently, these and other New Deal architectural gems are being threatened by the bulldozer.

Then here's what the great Robert Caro had to say:

“It’s ironic to be tearing (Greenhills) down just when America is going through tough times again,” said the biographer Robert A. Caro, who wrote about the W.P.A. in “The Power Broker,” his book about the builder Robert Moses. “We should be preserving them and honoring them. They serve as monuments to the fact that it is possible to combine infrastructure with beauty"

"Infrastructure with beauty" There's that word again, but you get the point. Public housing is indeed public works, with high purpose.

But just as these New Deal works are being threatened, we're threatening our public housing inheritance. Over 100,000 units have been demolished this last decade with only a fraction replaced. Many families and individuals have been dispersed with varying amounts of success. These are amazing facts when one considers the national shortage of affordable rental housing.

There's a growing sentiment that we must promote affordable housing production all across the country. And there's equal sentiment that we must require some form of "one for one" replacement when we're engaged in planned destruction of public housing units. Look for this Administration and Congress to be more prone to listen to these demands.